Indian Antiquary Vol 60

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, S Krishnaswami Aiyangar, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarka
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 256

226
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
( DECEMBER, 1931
later found that the real reason for this was that he believes the present palace to be haunted by the old murdered Tsarong and his son, whose estates and women-folk the present man has inherited. Tsarong has had several children who died in infancy, and there is left to him only one sickly little boy. Medical science would account for this in another way, but even the modern and progressive Tsarong believes that these calamities are due to the ghosts of his predecessors, who are thirsting for revenge, and he believes that in a new building the shades of the dead will be powerless."
VII. FOOD AND TABUS.
1. Chlokons. "Chicken (p. 210) is supposed to be an unspeakably filthy food in Tibet, and custom forbids its use. Eggs, for some reason, are also placed on the taboo list, and many strict lamas, who consume huge quantities of mutton, refuse to eat eggs on the ground that the practice deprives future chickens of life."
In Burma cocks are kept for fighting, but hens are regarded with indifference, for their eggs are of no use, owing to the Buddhist prejudices against destroying life by eating them. See Shway Yoe, The Burman, 84.
2. MINE. "Strangely enough, notwithstanding the enormous number of yaks to be found in Tibet and the great amount of milk which they produce, the Tibetans themselves are very loath to drink it, or to use it in any way in cooking. Most Tibetans rogard milk as filthy, as being a different form of urine, and when drunk it is regarded as a kind of medicine which must be taken, however unpleasant it may be, so that when we purchased our supply from the herdsman, we had to explain that one of us was ill and requirod it on medical grounds." In Burma, and apparently in all far Eastern lands, milk is not an article of diet.
8. Batter. “The repugnanoe (p. 127), which the Tibetans feel against milk, is more than counter acted by their fondness for butter. While, curiously enough, milk is rogarded as filthy, butter is considered clean, and incredible quantities of butter are consumed overy year. It is chiefly used in the preparation of tea."
4. Butter for Lamps. "Quite apart from its food value, butter is largely used in other ways, one as a fuel for lamps. Nearly every one of the older religions reveals a fondness for having some light burning before its sacred images, and in Tibetan Buddhism this practice has been carried to extraordinary lengths. At all times the principal idols have two or three sacred lamps burning in front of them, and at festival periods such lamps not alight in a temple will be increased by hundreds and even thousands. It is a common form of piety to bestow a sum of money on a temple to have a special display of such lights. In all such cases the only fuel used is butter. The lamp itself is a wide, shallow bowl, the wick being a twisted cord made of wool placed in the middle of a lump of butter. The flame is a rich and creamy yellow, rather pretty, but it gives out little light, for which reason, and also because of the expense of the fuel, these butter lamps are chiefly used in religious buildings, and are but sparsely employed by laymen."
6. Butter for Decoration. I “As a decoration for the temple, or family shrine (p. 128), butter is also greatly in demand. The butter is moulded into various shapes, having some more or lone geometrical form, and frequently having some bas-relief design representing an animal, or more frequently a flower. Although made entirely of butter, these forma, as they are called, are usually dyed in various different colours, reds and greens being the popular shades. Some of these forma are made only for a special occasion and then ceremoniously destroyed, but inany